سَعْدَانٌ
, in which the ن is an augmentative letter, because there is not in the language any word of the measure فَعْلَالٌ except خَزْعَالٌ and قَهْقَارٌ unless it is of the reduplicative class, A certain plant,growing in the plain, or soft, tracts,one of the best kinds of the pastures of camels,as long as it continues fresh;having [a head of] prickles,calledحَسَكَةُ السَّعْدَانِ, to which the nipple [or the areola] of a woman's breast is likened: (S, K: [see سَعْدَانَةٌ, below:]) the Arabs say that the camels that yield the sweetest milk are those that eat this plant: and they fatten upon it: it is of the kind of plants calledأَحْرَار [pl. of حُرٌّ, meaning slender, and succulent or soft or sweet], dust-coloured, and sweet, and eaten by everything that is not large, [as well as by camels,] and it is one of the most wholesome kinds of pasture: it is a herb, or leguminous plant, having a round fruit with a prickly face, which, when it dries, falls upon the ground on its back, and when a person walking treads upon it, the prickles wound his foot: it is one of the best of their pastures in the days of theرِبيع, and sweetens the milk of the camels that feed upon it; for it is sweet as long as it continues fresh; and in this state men such it and eat it: the n. un. is with ة. Hence the prov., مَرْعًى وَلَا كَالسَّعْدَانِ [Pasture, but not like theسعدان]: said of a thing possessing excellence, but surpassed in excellence by another thing; or of a thing that excels other things of the like kind. 2 Also The prickles of the palm-tree.
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